July 17, 2010

Oval racing

I went to an oval racing track with my dad last week. It was very different from what I’d expected, and not at all bad. The track was pretty small and the general mood was for from the professional racing atmosphere that I expected, but the action was plenty and there were always things to see. I’ve added some photos here, and you can find more on Picasa.

Rolling start

Speedy speed boy

First corner

For great justice

Flagman

Overheated

Funky cars

A bit of an accident

It was an entertaining day. Right after a group of cars finishes a race, which usually lasts less than 10 minutes, a new group of cars lines up and before the next 10 minutes are over they’re on their way again. There’s all kinds of cars, as you can see from the photos, ranging from normal street cars that have been modified to dedicated race cars.

Photography note: I took over 500 photos with my 50D+70-300mm IS, and threw away more than half of them because they were blurry, duplicate, badly framed or just boring. The shots that I didn’t delete aren’t very good either, but it’s my first time taking photos at such an event, so I might as well keep them for reference. For the moving car shots I used either ISO100 at f/11 or higher to create a sense of speed (the cars weren’t really going that fast.. >_<;), or ISO400/800 at a lower f value to get sharp images.

After seeing this I was giddy like a little boy and wanted to play racing games on my PC, only to find out that the old PC that I’m using at home doesn’t have the power… T_T Since my graphics card is now confirmed to be sprinkling red flashy pixels on every screen that I use, I’d better get some new hardware when I get back from my holiday.